“Mrs. Behn was dead, you see,” his father had explained. “Safe.”
William had nodded, wishing to seem worldly and understanding, though in fact he had no real notion what his father meant by this. Safe? How, safe?
He shook his head. He didn’t expect ever to understand Uncle Hal, and chances were that was best for both of them. His grandmother Benedicta was probably the only person who did. Thought of his uncle, though, led him to think of his cousin Henry, and his mouth tightened a little.
Word would have reached Adam, of course, but he likely could do nothing for his brother. Neither could William, whose duty called him north. Between his father and Uncle Hal, though, surely …
The horse threw up his head, snorting a little, and William looked ahead to see a man standing by the road, one arm raised to hail him.
He rode slowly, a sharp eye on the wood, lest the man have confederates hidden to waylay unwary travelers. The verge was open here, though, with a thick but spindly growth of saplings behind it; no one could hide in there.
“Good day to you, sir,” he said, reining up a safe distance from the old man. For old he was; his face was seamed like a tin mine’s slag heap, he leaned on a tall staff, and his hair was pure white, tied back in a plait.
“Well met,” the old gentleman said. Gentleman for he stood proud, and his clothes were decent, and now William came to look, there was a good horse, too, hobbled and cropping grass some distance away. William relaxed a little.
“Where do you fare, sir?” he asked politely. The old man shrugged a little, easy.
“That may depend upon what you can tell me, young man.” The old man was a Scot, though his English was good. “I am in search of a man called Ian Murray, whom I think you know?”
William was disconcerted by this; how did the old man know that? But he knew Murray; perhaps Murray had mentioned William to him. He replied cautiously, “I know him. But I am afraid I have no idea where he is.”
“No?” The old man looked keenly at him. As though he thinks I might lie to him, William thought. Suspicious old sod!
“No,” he repeated firmly. “I met him in the Great Dismal, some weeks ago, in company with some Mohawk. But I do not know where he might have gone since then.”
“Mohawk,” the old man repeated thoughtfully, and William saw the sunken eyes fasten on his chest, where the great bear claw rested outside his shirt. “Did you get that wee bawbee from the Mohawk, then?”
“No,” William replied stiffly, not knowing what a bawbee was, but thinking that it sounded in some way disparaging. “Mr. Murray brought it to me, from a—friend.”
“A friend.” The old man was frankly studying his face, in a way that made William uncomfortable and therefore angry. “What is your name, young man?”
“None of your business, sir,” William said, as courteously as possible, and gathered his reins. “Good day to you!”
The old man’s face tightened, as did his hand on the staff, and William turned sharply, lest the old bugger mean to try to strike him with it. He didn’t, but William noticed, with a small sense of shock, that two fingers of the hand that grasped the staff were missing.
He thought for a moment that the old man might mount and come after him, but when he glanced back, the man was still standing by the road, looking after him.
It made no real difference, but, moved by some obscure notion of avoiding notice, William put the bear’s claw inside his shirt, where it hung safely concealed next to his rosary.
COUNTDOWN
Fort Ticonderoga
June 18, 1777
Dear Bree and Roger,
Twenty-three days and counting. I hope we’ll be able to leave on schedule. Your cousin Ian left the fort a month ago, saying that he had a wee bit of business to take care of but would be back by the time Jamie’s militia enlistment was up. Ian himself declined to enlist, being instead a volunteer forager, so he’s not technically AWOL. Not that the fort’s commander is really in a position to do anything about deserters, save hang them if they’re silly enough to come back, and none of them do. I’m not sure what Ian’s doing, but I have some hope that it may be good for him.
Speaking of the fort’s commander, we have a new one. Great excitement! Colonel Wayne left a few weeks ago—doubtless sweating with relief as much as with the humidity—but we have come up in the world. The new commander is a major general, no less: one Arthur St. Clair, a genial and very handsome Scot, whose attractiveness is considerably enhanced by the pink sash he affects on formal occasions. (The nice thing about belonging to an ad hoc army is that one apparently gets to design one’s own uniform. None of this stuffy old British convention about regimentals.)
General St. Clair comes with outriders: no fewer than three lesser generals, one of them French (your father says General Fermoy is rather fishy, militarily speaking), and about three thousand new recruits. This has substantially heartened everyone (though placing an ungodly strain on the latrine facilities. The lines are fifteen deep in the mornings at the pits, and there is a severe shortage of thunder mugs), and St. Clair made a nice speech, assuring us that the fort cannot possibly be taken now. Your father, who was standing next to the general at the time, said something under his breath in Gaelic at this point, but not very far under, and while I understand the general was born in Thurso, he conveniently affected not to understand.
The bridge-building between the fort and Mount Independence continues apace … and Mount Defiance continues to sit there across the water. An inoffensive little hill, to look at—but a good bit higher than the fort. Jamie had Mr. Marsden row across with a target—a four-foot square of wood, painted white—and set it up near the top of the hill, where it was plainly visible from the fort’s batteries. He invited General Fermoy (he does not get a pink sash, despite being French) to come and try his hand at shooting with one of the new rifles (Jamie having thoughtfully abstracted several of these from the cargo of the Teal before patriotically donating the rest to the American cause). They blasted the target to bits, an act whose significance was not lost on General St. Clair, who came along to watch. I think General St. Clair will be almost as pleased as I will be when your father’s enlistment is up.
The new influx has made things busier, of course. Most of the new recruits are reasonably healthy, for a wonder, but there are the usual minor accidents, cases of venereal disease, and summer ague—enough that Major Thacher—he’s the chief medical officer—has taken to turning a blind eye when I surreptitiously bind up a wound, though he draws the line at allowing me access to sharp instruments. Fortunately, I have a small knife with which to lance boils.
I am also growing very short of useful herbs, since Ian’s defection. He used to bring me things from his foraging expeditions, but it really isn’t safe to venture out of the fort save in large bodies. Two men who went out hunting a few days ago were found murdered and scalped.
While my medical kit thus remains a little sparse, I have as some compensation acquired a ghoul. This is a Mrs. Raven from New Hampshire, whose husband is a militia officer. She’s relatively young, in her thirties, but has never had children and thus has a lot of emotional energy to expend. She battens on the sick and dying, though I’m sure she considers herself to be sympathetic in the extreme. She revels in ghastly detail, which, while mildly repulsive in itself, does make her a competent aide, since she can be counted on not to faint while I set a compound fracture or amputate (quickly, before Major Thacher or his henchman, Lieutenant Stactoe, notices) a gangrenous digit, for fear of missing something. Granted, she does wail and carry on a bit, and is much given to clutching her rather flat chest and allowing her eyes to bulge while describing these adventures to other people afterward (she nearly prostrated herself from hyperventilation when they brought in the men who were scalped), but one takes what one can get in the way of help.
At the other end of the scale in terms of medical competence, though, the new influx of recruits has brought with it a young
Quaker doctor named Denzell Hunter and his sister, Rachel. I haven’t yet spoken to him personally, but from what I see, Dr. Hunter really is a doctor, and seems even to have some vague notion of germ theory, owing to his having trained with John Hunter, one of the great men of medicine (on the chance that Roger will be reading this, I will refrain from telling you the manner in which John Hunter discovered how gonorrhea is transmitted—well, no, actually I won’t: he stabbed himself in the penis with a lancet covered in pus from an infected victim and was deeply gratified with the results, according to Denny Hunter, who recounted this interesting incident to your father while bandaging his thumb, which got squashed between two rolling logs—don’t worry, it isn’t broken; just badly bruised). I’d love to see how Mrs. Raven would take this story, but I suppose propriety would prevent young Dr. Hunter telling her.
You are, of course, minding the children’s vaccination schedule.
With all my love,
Mama
Brianna had closed the book, but her hand kept returning involuntarily to the cover, as though she wished to open it again, in case it might say something different.
“What’s twenty-three days past June eighteenth?” She should be able to reckon that—she could do things like that in her head—but nervousness had deprived her of the ability to compute.
“Thirty days hath September,” Roger chanted quickly under his breath, rolling up his eyes to the ceiling, “April, June—right, June’s got thirty days, so twelve days from the eighteenth to the thirtieth, and ten more makes it the tenth of July.”
“Oh, dear Lord.”
She’d read it three times, looking again wouldn’t make a difference; still, she opened the book once more, to the page with John Burgoyne’s portrait. A handsome man—“And doesn’t he just know it, too!” she said aloud, making Roger frown at her in consternation—as painted by Sir Joshua Reynolds, he was in uniform, his hand resting on the hilt of his sword, standing against a dramatic backdrop of gathering storm clouds. And there it was on the next page, plain in black and white.
On the sixth of July, General Burgoyne attacked Fort Ticonderoga with a force of some 8,000 regulars, plus several German regiments under the Baron von Riedesel, and a number of Indians.
William found General Burgoyne and his army somewhat more easily than the Hunters had discovered General Washington’s whereabouts. On the other hand, General Burgoyne was making no attempt to hide.
It was a lavish camp, by army standards. Neatly arranged rows of white canvas tents covered three fields and ran off into the woods. Making his way to the commander’s tent to report, he spotted a pile of empty wine bottles near the general’s tent that rose nearly to his knee. As he had not heard that the general was a notable souse, he assumed this largesse to be the result of an open-handed hospitality and a liking for company. A good sign in a commander, he thought.
A yawning servant was picking off the remnants of the lead seals, tossing the metal into a can, presumably to be melted for bullets. He gave William a sleepy, inquiring eye.
“I’ve come to report to General Burgoyne,” William said, drawing himself up. The servant’s eye traveled slowly up the length of his body, lingering with vague curiosity on his face and making him doubt the thoroughness of his morning shave.
“Dinner party with the brigadier and Colonel St. Leger last night,” the servant said at last, and belched slightly. “Come back this afternoon. Meanwhile”—he stood slowly, wincing as though the movement hurt his head, and pointed—“the mess tent’s over there.”
FRIENDS
Fort Ticonderoga
June 22, 1777
Much to my surprise, I found Captain Stebbings sitting up. White-faced, bathed in sweat, and swaying like a pendulum—but upright. Mr. Dick hovered over him, clucking with the tender anxiety of a hen with one chick.
“I see you’re feeling better, Captain,” I said, smiling at him. “Have you on your feet any day now, won’t we?”
“Been … on my feet,” he wheezed. “Think I might die.”
“What?”
“Him be walking!” Mr. Dick assured me, torn between pride and dismay. “On my arm, but him walk, sure!”
I was on my knees, listening to lungs and heart through the wooden stethoscope Jamie had made for me. A pulse fit for an eight-cylinder race car, and a good bit of gurgling and wheezing, but nothing horribly alarming.
“Congratulations, Captain Stebbings!” I said, lowering the stethoscope and smiling at him. He still looked dreadful, but his breathing was beginning to slow. “You probably won’t die today. What brought on this burst of ambition?”
“My … bosun,” he managed, before a fit of coughing intervened.
“Joe Ormiston,” Mr. Dick clarified, with a nod in my direction. “Him foot stink. The captain go see him.”
“Mr. Ormiston. His foot stinks?” That sounded all sorts of alarm bells. For a wound in this particular setting to smell so notably as to draw attention was a very bad indication. I rose to my feet but was detained by Stebbings, who had taken a firm grip of my skirt.
“You—” he said, laboring for air. “You take care of him.”
He bared stained teeth at me in a grin.
“ ’S an order,” he wheezed. “Ma’am.”
“Aye, aye, Cap’n,” I said tartly, and made off for the hospital building, where the majority of the sick and wounded were housed.
“Mrs. Fraser! What’s amiss?” The eager cry came from Mrs. Raven, who was coming out of the commissary as I passed. She was tall and lean, with dark hair that perpetually straggled out from under her cap, which it was doing at the moment.
“I don’t know yet,” I said briefly, not stopping. “But it might be serious.”
“Oh!” she said, barely refraining from adding, “Goody!” Tucking her basket under her arm, she fell in beside me, firmly set to Do Good.
Invalid British prisoners were housed alongside the American sick in a long stone building lit by narrow, glassless windows and either freezing or stifling, depending on the weather. It was presently hot and humid outdoors—it was mid-afternoon—and entering the building was like being struck in the face with a hot, wet towel. A dirty hot, wet towel.
It wasn’t hard to find Mr. Ormiston; there was a knot of men standing round his cot. Lieutentant Stactoe was among them—that was bad—arguing with little Dr. Hunter—that was good—with a couple of other surgeons trying to put in their own opinions.
I knew without looking what they were arguing about; clearly Mr. Ormiston’s foot had taken a turn for the worse, and they intended to amputate it. In all probability, they were right. The argument would likely be about where to amputate, or who was to do it.
Mrs. Raven hung back, nervous at sight of the surgeons.
“Do you really think …” she began, but I paid her no attention. There are times for thinking, but this wasn’t one of them. Only action, and fast, decisive action at that, would serve. I took in a lungful of the thick air and stepped forward.
“Good afternoon, Dr. Hunter,” I said, elbowing my way between the two militia surgeons and smiling at the young Quaker doctor. “Lieutenant Stactoe,” I added as an afterthought, not to be overtly rude. I knelt beside the patient’s cot, wiped my sweaty hand on my skirt, and took his.
“How are you, Mr. Ormiston? Captain Stebbings has sent me to take care of your foot.”
“He what?” Lieutenant Stactoe began, in a peeved sort of voice. “Really, Mrs. Fraser, what can you possibly—”
“That’s good, ma’am,” Mr. Ormiston interrupted. “The captain said as how he’d send you; I was just a-telling these gentlemen here as they needn’t be concerned, as I was sure you’d know the best way to do it.”
And I’m sure they were pleased to hear that, I thought, but smiled at him and squeezed his hand. His pulse was fast and a little light, but regular. His hand, though, was very hot, and I wasn’t even faintly surprised to see the reddish streaks of septicemia rising up his leg fro
m the mangled foot.
They had unwrapped the foot, and Mr. Dick had unquestionably been right: him stank.
“Oh, my God,” said Mrs. Raven behind me, in complete sincerity.
Gangrene had set in; if the smell and tissue crepitation were not enough, the toes had begun to blacken already. I didn’t waste time in being angry at Stactoe; given the original condition of the foot, and the treatment available, I might not have been able to save it, either. And the fact that gangrene was so clearly present was actually a help; there couldn’t be any question that amputation was necessary. But in that case, I wondered, why were they arguing?
“I take it you agree that amputation is necessary, Mrs. Fraser?” the lieutenant said, with sarcastic courtesy. “As the patient’s physician?” He had his instruments already laid out on cloth, I saw. Decently kept; not disgustingly filthy—but plainly not sterilized.
“Certainly,” I said mildly. “I’m very sorry about it, Mr. Ormiston, but he’s right. And you will feel much better with it off. Mrs. Raven, will you go and bring me a pan of boiling water?” I turned to Denzell Hunter, who, I saw, was holding Mr. Ormiston’s other hand, plainly counting his pulse.
“Do you not agree, Dr. Hunter?”
“I do, yes,” he said mildly. “We are in disagreement regarding the degree of amputation required, not its necessity. What is the boiling water for, Friend … Fraser, he said?”
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